


Lightning Bolt

by pok3d3x



Series: Oath of the Gaywatch [2]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Bad Jokes, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, Light Angst, Losing Control, Puns & Word Play, Thunder and Lightning, zeleren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8263492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pok3d3x/pseuds/pok3d3x
Summary: Ral Zarek wanted to be the maze runner, but that didn't mean he wanted the responsibility of being the delegate every time there was a minor debate between guilds. Unfortunately for the Living Guildpact and his dutiful Arrestor, Ral's displeasure with the role just means that he's more of a handful to deal with, especially when's he sparking with irritation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> No character death, but there is injury. I wouldn't call it graphic though. Light swearing.

Jace was begrudgingly walking through New Prav with Ral Zarek of all people, trying to keep himself composed and not let on how frustrated he was. The other planeswalker of course was the Izzet League's delegate for formal grievances, and supposedly, the Simic had been invading their territory with new breeding grounds, but of course they claimed it was their territory in the first place.

Zarek had been sent to show the Living Guildpact the exact place so that he could arbiter how the Simic and Izzet sorted their differences out. Lavinia tailed them, bringing a thick sheaf of documents that covered the history of land ownership. The dispute was slightly more complicated by the Izzet's aggressive lack of concern for respecting borders after the failure of the first Guildpact.

"I don't know why _I_ have to do all this legwork over something so trivial. I mean, any grunt could do it. I have inventions to be working on. I'm in the middle of a very importan—"

"You did sabotage the initially intended maze runner for this position," Lavinia reminded flatly, looking on ahead like she was in the exciting process of watching paint dry. Ral Zarek had been complaining about his valuable time being taken up for the last five minutes straight, and while she was used to long, repetitive, and looping dialogue, at least Azorius legal forums had a goal of destroying loopholes as the reason for their redundancy.

"That weird was inadequate. Ravnica should thank me for taking its place," Ral dismissed the good point.

Jace would never admit it to him for fear of what it would do to his ego, but he considered Ral may be right. He didn't know a lot about weirds, but their minds were often hazy to Jace. Close to cognisant, but just not quite fully sentient. He wasn't sure he would have been able to connect Melek's mind to the other maze runners.

Ral was in a foul mood, that day having started with the bad news of some of his equipment getting lost in shipping, and thus not available for at least four days, progressing to worse when he found out his project he'd spent the last two weeks on was a dud, and decidedly having become awful when he was pulled from his lab to deal with what he felt was grunt work. Jace eyed the sparks dancing across his body and how Zarek idly turned gears at his belt until they settled to static.

"It's just, I don't have anything to do with the Simic, why chose me? _I'm_ not the group that's supposedly intruding on their space. I know nothing about the building projects in that district."

"It's just such a shame that you lack the ability to read up about your intra guild business," Lavinia dryly responded. Jace muffled a chuckle.

Glaring at the arrestor, he snapped back," If I wanted to waste my time reading useless documents, I would have joined the Azorius."

"No, you just wanted to be the source of a lot of tedious paperwork, so you joined the Izzet instead," she calmly quipped, much to Ral's chagrin.

"Alright," Jace said, raising his hands in a plea for peace," As the Guildpact, it's my duty to keep peace between guilds, and I feel this conversation is getting a little out of hand."

"I've got to hand it to you, you're doing a swell job," Ral sarcastically mumbled.

Jace gave him an annoyed glance for the poor attempt at a pun and muttered back," If you weren't such a handful, maybe I'd do better."

"I wish I could hand off this assignment," Lavinia whispered just loud enough to be heard.

Ral smirked and said," This humor is a bit heavy handed." He was still clearly stressed out, hand still messing around with the gauges of his dampner, but the little improvement in his mood made the last leg of the walk a little more bearable.

"It's gotten more than out of hand," Jace agreed, hating himself a little as he continued the cycle.

"We're just scraping these together hand over fist."

"One more pun, and you'll… _force my hand_ to draw up a legal document concerning how many bad jokes we can make in one excursion." Lavinia didn't even crack a smile once, continuing on like nothing was out of the ordinary.

They had just entered the Simic Combine, and the difference between inner city Ravnica and marshy Simic territory was as obvious as night and day. The smooth cobblestone had become smoother, filmy paths with intruding moss, and the buildings had become partially sunken marble structures.

Vorel was waiting for them, and the complaint was obvious before he even said anything. Jace could see over his shoulder, on the far reaches of his vision, where a plume of blue smoke stood out drastically from the—well, not natural, but decidedly organic—landscape around it.

"Expansion began before the maze," Vorel explained as he walked them closer to the site. "And we graciously allowed it so far as it stopped and never reached the breeding pools, but it has and it's putting our young in danger."

Ral scoffed at this and roughly asked," You call some mutant frogs your youn—"

"We will investigate the potential harm coming to your guild's young," Jace interjected, ignoring the disapproving scowl he got from Ral. Lavinia held up her readied pen and paper for note taking as a show of solidarity.

It turned out to be the headache Jace had expected it to be. Neither guilds' maze runner was being entirely honest, as Jace assumed would be the case, and both maze runners were avoiding some details of what happened before the maze and after the resolution while pointing out the other's missed details.

The brief reprieve from Ral's foul mood took seconds to crumble, and his hair stood on end as it crackled. Lavinia in her ornamental armor had received more than a few shocks, that luckily dispersed down her person with no harm other than her tight hood slipping at the sudden frizziness of her hair. Jace ran a hand through his hair and found it similarly frazzled. He lightly groaned as he rose an illusion to cover his bad hair.

Luckily, the Simic young had been relocated, Jace thought warily as he watched small trails of electricity run across the wet ground. Lavinia accidently bumped him and Jace jumped at the shock he received, jarred at its intensity. "Ral," he harshly called the guildmage's attention," Watch your sparks."

"Don't be ridiculous," Ral chided. "Unless my dampener was on the fritz I should barely be making static. I have it cranked as high as it can…" He looked down as he felt the tingle of electricity pouring through his body and escaping in large shocks that were starting to become worryingly close to bolts.

He hit his gauntlet with an open palm twice, then began to check the gears that were easily accessible without disassembly. An anxious expression gripped him as he muttered," My dampener can't be on the fritz… It never is; it's mizzium." All thought of the disagreement at hand was lost as he began to actively turn dials on his belt, it all seeming arbitrary to the Guildpact despite having observed Zarek mess around with it on a near constant basis all of today.

"If this is a tactic to interrupt this meeting," Vorel began with a threatening displeasure to his voice. He stepped forward raising a finger and shook it angrily, but the arrestor looked between him and Zarek and decided this was not some scheme.

Lavinia crossed urgently over to Vorel and hooked an arm with him despite the shock she knew he'd probably endure, dragging him away as she announced," Due to perceived danger, this meeting is adjourned until Guildmage Zarek can control his magic."

Guildmage Zarek could not control his magic. With a shaky panic as he began to unhook his harness , he repeatedly mumbled," This is bad."

Jace had seen Ral anxious before. He'd seen him literally sparking with anger—but he'd never seen such defined panic in the other planeswalker as he was radiating now, and he'd never seen the other without his dampener working. It began to drizzle as a stiff breeze kicked up on what had been a previously sunny day.

"Zarek, is there anything I can do help—"

"Get away from me, Guildpact," he shouted, looking up from his machine that he had now laid out on the ground. He didn't unhook himself, too afraid to take away the little it might be helping. The Simic Combine was less than ideal, water everywhere, no nice flat surfaces, but Ral didn't have time to hightail it back to the League. His heart was thrumming with energy and it was only getting worse.

His trembling hands began to pry open the casing of his dampener, eyes quickly scouring for what could be wrong.

"You're pouring out more energy than all of Izzet. You need a helping hand."

"You can shove your puns up your—"

"Ral, you need to calm down!" He'd tried to lighten things up, but that wasn't working. He considered entering the other's mind and forcibly taking care of the problem at hand.

Red in the face, Ral yelled," You think I don't know that?" He couldn't even hear his own heartbeat anymore as the energy swelled and the crackling became maddening in his ears. A large thunderclap echoed overhead. His breath was so shallow, he noted, only finding himself more anxious as he identified the clear signs he was losing control.

Jace saw Lavinia safely escort Vorel out of sight and relaxed slightly, though Ral's last shout was quickly followed by a large volley of electricity and Jace found himself stunned. His body locked up as he felt vibrations through all of his limbs. He buzzed with energy as it corsed through him, and it left him so lightheaded he wasn't quite able to realize he could move his feet for a few seconds after the shock was long gone. Were his muscles spasming? He realized he was falling only as he heard the other call his name.

More thunder rolled and Jace blearily thought that this was in fact, bad. He looked around at all the nearby pools of life, and grimly thought the death toll could be rather high if he'd didn't fix this. His brain was reeling too much to solve it like a puzzle though.

"I told you to get away," Ral said with an accusatory sneer, but his face showed his more guilty dread.

Jace pushed himself to his knees, almost slipping in the now heavy rainfall. The wind buffeted him from all sides, and he felt chilled to the bone as it cut through his soaking cloak easily.

"Ral," he tried to call out over the raging storm.

"I- I can't do it. It's too late. I'm going to lose it."

Jace thought exasperatedly, he hadn't lost it already?

"You need to get away from me, Guildpact. I'm going to kill you."

"You usually say that with a lot more conviction," Jace commented dazedly, still trying to figure out how to get to his feet. 

Almost completely drowned out by the largest boom of thunder yet, Ral shouted at the top of his lungs," This isn't the time to be joking!"

Jace finally made it to vertical status, and immediately closed the distance between him and Ral Zarek. Leaning down the little he needed to touch Ral's shoulder, he felt the onslaught of energy flood through him and only barely kept his wits about him enough to open their connection to the Blind Eternities.

As they were sucked out the fabric of Ravnica, the sudden volatile storm came to a stuttering stop. They traded one for another, and the coursing raw mana ripped through their hair and tried to pull their souls away. Everything was in motion and perfectly still, including them as Jace pulled them closer to the plane he had in mind.

He could feel Zarek shouting, though he couldn't hear it. If his muscles weren't locked as they were, he would have attempted to tighten his grip, but as it was, their journey was already over. 

He barely had enough time to call a shield as a massive bolt of lightning bared down on them. A harsh kick slammed him in the shoulder, wrenching his neck. The lightning strike lasted almost two seconds, and his shield couldn't keep out all of it. The entire time, Jace felt a lack of feeling in his chest despite his whole back arching.

When it was over, he dimly became aware of the freezing air around him that clawed at his drenched body. He fell spasming to the snow covered ground, his descent slowed by frantic hands trying to catch him.

He came back to, though he didn't remember passing out, to Ral whispering," Oh no, I killed the Guildpact. I can't believe I dissolved all law and order on Ravnica. I killed the Guildpact. I fucking killed the Guildpact." 

Jace could hear the sound of someone rubbing their hands together quickly and he opened his eyes to crackling hands coming for his chest. With wide eyes, he quickly shouted," I'm not dead, Zarek!"

Ral stared at him like he couldn't believe his eyes, and he let the electricity in his palms fizzle out. All he could manage to say was," I probably should have checked for a heartbeat first." Then after a few more seconds, he angrily asked," What were you thinking, Guildpact?"

"I had to save the Combine. It's my duty."

"You should be dead!"

"I've heard that more than a few times in my life."

"Bringing us to an arctic desert? Really? You chose the most dangerous place to have a thunderstorm?"

Jace remembered reading about electricity and storms, though why this was the most dangerous environment escaped his brain. "I knew there wouldn't be people on this plane," he excused softly. He began to wonder how he was so warm, and looked around wearily. A shield of red mana protected them, and he closed his eyes satisfactorily. He'd saved all of Simic, managed not to die himself, _and_ they weren't freezing to death.

"The lightning is way more likely to have a positive polarity in this—"

"Ral, I don't really care," Jace said bluntly, feeling his eyes roll lethargically from the shield around them to the mage that was trying to explain something he didn't really feel up to grasping at the moment. He felt a little bad as he saw Ral's face drop, but only a little. He had just been stricken by lightning, in his defense.

"The air can feel me, and I can feel it," Jace hazily decided to share. His head wouldn't stop buzzing, and he felt faint. "It's walking on my skin."

Ral helped Jace sit up and explained," All the nerves in your body are over stimulated. That should go away."

"My leg really hurts. It feels like I fell from a story up."

"The muscles probably contracted enough to break a bone or something."

"Your hair is super fluffy."

Ral rolled his eyes and snarked," You're one to talk, puffball."

Jace could hear the crackling of static as Ral gripped his shoulders tightly. He looked Ral in the eyes, and Ral tsked. "You need to see a healer." His throat got tight, and he swallowed hard. "I almost killed you."

"I know." Jace was too dazed to come up with some elegant dismissal.

Ral put his head to Jace's chest and repeated," I almost killed you."

Jace felt waves of shame hit him from the other mind, and he weakly said," It's okay."

He let go of Jace's shoulder with one hand so he could lightly beat it back in a feeble punch. "I've been working on my control for my whole life, Guildpact. It's not oh-fucking-kay. I should be better than this. I lost control so easily. You almost died."

"You can call me Jace," he whispered into Ral's messy hair.

"You regularly get on a first name basis with all your would be killers?"

"More often than not," Jace said, only half jokingly.

Ral stayed silent for a short while, then spoke up softly," We should get back."

Jace had to agree with that sentiment, the buzzing in his head getting to be too much. Together, they planeswalked back to Ravnica.


End file.
